While there is widespread disagreement as to if the U.S. economy is on the edge of a depression, a recession or is just experiencing an “anxiety economy”, no one can argue that the financial crisis is not having a huge ripple effect and its going to take years to work out.

Rick Erling, President of The CxO Group, LLC, a Dallas, Texas CEO Coaching and Business Performance Improvement firm adds “Today’s uncertain economic times are forcing all executives, managers, and business owners to adopt new strategies for navigating through the current business downturn. At times like these many companies prefer to move into a survival strategy to ride out the storm.

Survival strategy, while conservative, has one underlying problem. In today’s hyper-connected economy things can unravel quickly and when your business is not growing and improving it is falling behind and headed for extinction. Keep in mind that even though your business may be slow today, your business will return to profitability in the future, IF you do what is necessary to survive today. ”

The CxO Group specializes in CEO coaching and business performance improvement by integrating financial management, strategies, marketing, and sales to maximize corporate revenue growth. We use a copyrighted methodology to advise CEOs on action steps to take to grow revenues, consult with management staff on best practices and train sales and marketing teams on tactics and strategies that put your business value in front of you so your prospects see you differently than your competition and take action steps to buy.

So, what are you going to do? Let employees go?  Cut back on marketing?  Squeeze your current clients for more money? Yes, you can do all of this, but is that going to help? What can you specifically do during a recession to grow your business profitability?

Receive our COMPLEMENTARY SPECIAL REPORT titled “10 Tips To Grow Your Business in a Recession or Economic Downturn” that will help answer those questions. You can download your copy now at this special link  http://growth.thecxogroup.com/ . Alternatively, you can contact us by email at  info@thecxogroup.com, or call (972) 727-6880 to request your copy.

“A recession is when your neighbor is out of work. A depression is when you are out of work.” Rick Erling - President The CxO Group, LLC

It’s been said that money hides mistakes. Corporate earnings are down, the market drops and gains triple digits on multiple days, housing prices continue to fall and foreclosure rates are skyrocketing. It’s no question that we are in an un-stable economic environment. Are we in a recession right now, if not today will we slip into one next week, or perhaps next month? With economic uncertainty looming, many of our clients are asking: How should I position my firm in the months to come? We are fast approaching the end of the first quarter. Today, we cover a topic that just might contain the insight you need to uncover any hidden mistakes and help you surpass your 2008 goals.The “Balanced Scorecard” is a strategic management approach developed in the early 1990s by Dr Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School, and Dr David Norton.Much like the “Balanced Scorecard” of the 1990s, that focused on linking business performance to department metrics, The CxO Group, LLC uses a “Sales and Marketing Metrics Scorecard” (http://www.sales-scorecard.com/) with a similar approach, but designed for today’s economy.Today’s scorecard creates interaction and links between five sales management pillars as a packaged team to help drive performance.– Sales– Marketing– Strategy– Operations/Development– Partners/AlliancesFirst, we create identifiable tactical measures for each of your sales team members and contributing departments. Then, we develop and help you implement the scorecard into a living, breathing business tool to proactively manage and link strategy, marketing and sales.This tool becomes a leading business driver that when used correctly, increases corporate cash flow, accelerates operational success, and allows companies to manage their business model by proactive metrics, not reactively by emotion.With this linkage, the scorecard provides clarity in strategic and tactical goals that can be readily monitored to understand where performance is coming from and where remedial attention is needed. As I mentioned, we are regularly asked about the best improvement initiatives to be made in this uncertain economy. We always suggest companies look towards sales metrics as the way to grow their business and uncover those “hidden” mistakes.Start with the foundation. If your sales and marketing organization doesn’t have clear objectives and metrics for accountability then you probably have a few mistakes hiding in your process that are costing you money. Clear sales objectives that are aligned with company strategy is one way you can be assured of hitting your goals in uncertain economic times.At The CxO Group, we believe the entire company, not just the sales department, is responsible for revenue capture! Visit us online at http://www.thecxogroup.com/ give us a call today at (972) 727-6880, or email info@thecxogroup.com to chat about how we can help you create a sales & marketing metrics scorecard that is custom fit so your firm’s business assets are centralized on revenue development and all departments are linked to the performance.

Does your website create website traffic and generate enough sales leads? If you are like most CEO’s, sales and marketing management I speak with on a daily basis, the answer is probably no.If you perform a Google search on “sales and marketing strategies” you’ll be pleased to find over 62 million web pages devoted to helping market a business and increase sales. Spend just five minutes looking at the search results and two items become very apparent . . .

1. You can’t expect to compete in business today without leveraging your reach with online digital marketing tools and having a Web Site Marketing Strategy.
2. If you’re not appealing directly to the person who is reading your ad, you risk them seeing it without realizing how it relates to them.

Considering there are over 65 million pages devoted to “sales and marketing strategies” validates the importance of creative writing and how to appeal directly to your customers’ need to increase traffic and conversions.Keep in mind that when people meet in a live in-person business meeting, we introduce ourselves with some statement about what we do, and why we should work with one another. In a live meeting it’s important to show very quickly that we understand their issues and needs, and that we have ideas and solutions to address these.Your website is a virtual meeting tool. It must accomplish the very same objectives of an in-person meeting. It must convey common points of interest, whether personal or professional. The virtual visitor must begin to feel that they can relate with you, and this helps to build the beginning of a business relationship. Studies show you have 8 seconds to build this relationship before they click to the next site listed in the search listings. If the visitor doesn’t feel they can relate to you, if they’re overwhelmed, confused, can’t easily navigate your site or simply not interested in your site, they’ll leave in very short order — 8 SECONDS!Keeping the above strategy at top of mind, here are the top seven smart ways to get your business noticed on the Internet.1. Keep it simple.Get rid of Flash and fancy intro pages! Studies today show you only have 8 seconds to convince a prospect how you can help. Does your website describe your product or service in a succinct, compelling and visual fashion in that timeframe?With thousands, perhaps millions of Google hits for a given search term, prospects are looking for exactly what they’ve typed in or they move on to the next search result.2. Value First, Brand SecondDon’t make the mistake of dragging your business value behind you by leading with the brand name of your product, service or company. Push your business value out in front of you and set yourself above the competition by using “Value Forward” methodology!3. Call to ActionOnce you’ve got their attention you must have calls to action like an offer of a free white paper, webinar, or newsletter to harvest prospect contact information.4. Easy NavigationYour website must be easy to navigate with less than 7 navigation buttons on the home page.5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Make sure your site appears high on search engines’ results pages. By including the right keywords and phrases, your site will appear higher up on Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.The key to keywording is translating what your product or service does into appropriate “Value Forward” keywords and phrases that will turn your visitors into qualified sales leads.6. Pay Per Click (PPC)Your sponsored or PPC listing on a search engine results page (SERP) must call out to the person reading it. If you’re not appealing directly to the person who is reading your ad, you risk them seeing it without realizing how it relates to them.In many situations it may even be necessary to develop new landing pages to help increase site level conversion.7. Podcasting and YouTubePodcasting and YouTube are new and simple technologies that you may want to take a look at. All you need to get started is a decent microphone, a digital audio or video recorder and editing software.This is a great strategy for many small businesses for several reasons. A voice, or video reference or testimonial rather than words on a website can convey conviction, credibility and personality.8. Track Your Customer Conversation Ratio or C.C.R.It is not how many unique visitors come to your website that is important. It is how many you can identify as prospects. Most companies today spend large amounts of marketing dollars on tradeshows, advertising, email marketing, corporate branding and direct mail driving thousands of potential buyers to their website . . . yet they don’t know who is there and don’t have engagement devices to capture their name. To generate more leads, track your C.C.R. through your daily audit logs as well as the names of those who sign up for your free information.Are you interested in insuring your solutions, products and services are conveyed in a compelling fashion on your website? Yes, your web designer will provide the actual website design and artwork, BUT it’s up to you to know what the content should be. Most importantly, you need to supply content that will trigger search engine hits and drive qualified traffic to your website.When you’re not experienced or don’t have the budget to have web strategy, marketing, sales or systems people on staff, or simply don’t have the bandwidth, get help! Smart business owners surround themselves with consultants that are strong where they are weak. Please consider having us help with your sales, marketing, and website strategies improvement projects.

National Night Out 2007 is coming up on August 7th, 2007. The purpose for this event is to:

Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;
Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;
Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and
Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

Check with your neighborhood to see if anything is planned for this event. Usually neighborhoods may plan bloack parties, cookouts, flashlight walks and etc.

There’s nothing I am scared of more than a wiggly caterpillar. Seriously, those little furry wiggly things really really just freak me out. I’m fine with butterflies, but gosh do they really have to be a caterpillar for that long before turning into a butterfly?

For the past few years since I’ve lived in Dallas, I have seen maybe one and they weren’t around our house. Now that we’ve moved to another house that’s older and has more trees around, all I notice right now are caterpillars. They were wiggling around my son’s sand box, right at the spot where I’m suppose to go to to crank up the cover…so no my son didn’t get to play in the box because I ran in the house. This morning, I wanted to go to the front yard to get the paper…and guess what was greeting me right out the first step. So, I had to run in the house again with no morning paper. Then I just looked out the backyard since we have nice floor to ceiling windows…and noticed one wiggling up the door. Luckily the screen door was there and it was actually going up the screen door. So i can at least flick on the screen door and keep it from coming in here.

Arrgh…seriously if they can get in here, I’m gonna have to move or something. It may be funny to you, but they really are just freaky. It’s the only thing that actually made me cry at camp. The first and last time I’ve ever actually went hard core camping. I think it was at the sequoia mountain and must have been the caterpillar season because they were just EVERYWHERE! These were black furry one and they just seem to fall from the sky (I mean, they did in a way…they were falling from the trees). When I tried to hide out in the tent, I looked up and gee whiz, I saw the silhouette of another one just wiggling above me. Yeah I’m sure it’s psychological and I know exactly when it happen that cause me to be afraid of those things. It was when I was probably 8 or 9 and one was on my shirt in front me and yeah I think I freaked out then and ran, not like it help since it was on me! Ever since then, I just never wanted to see one of those wigglies again. So to those little wigglies…hurry up and turn into a butterfly already!

It’s not just those that are bugging me right now during this season. Misquitoes, ants and fleas are attacking me like I’m some yummy breakfast, lunch and dinner…nice!

It’s that time of the year again… mosquito season. I really just loathe them, but they seem to love me. They literally buzz around me at night if one gets in the house. I don’t want to imagine what it’s going to be like when it gets even more humid. It’s also because we live near creeks, so lots of mosquitoes around. I can’t believe we considered getting a house that has a creek lot!

I’ve searched and searched for a more natural solution that’s not filled with DEET and found Bite Blocker All Natural Insect Repellent Herbal Wipes. It’s $7.99 from drugstore.com and there is also the Bite Blocker Spray (found here also). Though the spray version tend to be a little hard to use because at times it comes out in thick white chunks and not misty liquidy spray.

I’ve also considered getting a mosquito trap and found Mosquito Magnet and really wonder if anyone had tried it. It’s a bit costly, but if it gets rid of those darn things, I would get one.

So anyone from out of state (ones with state tax) would agree that it was quiet appealing when you hear that there is not State Tax in Texas. You would think that you’d save some money because of that - and you will. As long as you don’t buy a house! It’s quiet shocking the amount of Property Tax you have to pay per year (or per month). Especially for first time home buyers. It can equal to an amount more than most apartment renters pay for rent - just for the Property Tax. This doesn’t include home insurance and home owners warranty. Oh and in Dallas, you’ve got to get some kind of Termite System! I don’t know if they work, but it seems that you just have to have them.

Buying a home is a lot of people’s dream, but sometimes owning a home can be a lot of people’s nightmare. Granted the prices around Dallas is still more affordable compare to the East and West coast. You can’t buy a dumpy shack in Sierra Madre, CA for less than $500,000. People can own a mansion out here if they can afford a place in the East and West coast. I can’t even imagine how much Property Tax would cost for those owning a mansion in Dallas. Then again, I’m sure they have money for it if they can buy a mansion!

I would wish they would lower property tax. Imagine someone owning a house and has it paid off, especially for baby boomers who are starting to retire. They will still have to come up with money for the high Property Tax. It’s a real bummer!

I’m sure you have heard already that they are planning on Dallas The Movie based on the TV show Dallas. The word on the casting is that some big names will be in the movie. Some of the names that popped up are Catherine Zeta Jones, Jennifer Lope, John Travolta and even Brad Pitt. Wow! Will Brad Pitt leave Angelina and the kids in France while he comes to Dallas!?! Well, likely not. So far the debate seems to be that Dallas the movie may not even be made in Dallas. Will Dallas be in Canada? That’s what seems to be spreading. Plus, supposedly Dallas the original series was film in L.A, so there you have it. Dallas wasn’t in Dallas!

Wow, what a shocker: “Dallas is ranked the 6th meanest City (National Coalition for the Homeless) when it comes to treating their homeless and poor.” It’s not too shocking when you think about it. Dallas is where the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

Maybe if they make a deal to have the movie made in Dallas, they should give the money to the homeless and poor! Then everyone will be happy and be lovin’ Dallas!!

More info:

Read more about opposing views over Dallas on the Dallas movie website.

There was a funny post on the Dallas show website forum that said J.Lo’s “place is not in Dallas”.

Here’s the discussion of the movie being made in Canada instead of Dallas.